Seasonal Story Ideas

COMING IN 2025

A new 6-story Canopy by Hilton hotel will open just one block from Whiskey Row in early 2025. The 168-room property will feature a rooftop pool & bar, and a ground-floor eatery, Bourré Bonne Steakhouse, helmed by one of Louisville’s top restauranteurs, Kevin Grangier. A trio of outdoor projects will also come to fruition in 2025. Early next year, look for the completion of a new phase of Waterfront Park’s westward expansion along the Ohio River, which will bridge the divide between Louisville’s downtown and Portland neighborhood. Yew Dell Gardens is investing $5 million for its Castle Gardens Project which will transform the area surrounding the iconic Yew Dell Castle into a stunning collection of new gardens and water features. The Speed Art Museum is the oldest and largest art museum in Kentucky and is receiving a $22 million, three-acre makeover with a new park and sculpture garden opening late in the year. Free and open 24/7, the art park will feature 13 new world-class outdoor sculptures. Historic Churchill Downs will turn 150 years old in 2025, with the national historic landmark announcing that it will invest $90 million to upgrade the racetrack before Kentucky Derby 151. The Kentucky Derby Museum will also celebrate a milestone, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2025 with a $2.3 million upgrade to The Greatest Race, the museum’s popular 360° 4K film, as well as a new Derby through the Decades fashion exhibit.

THE BOURBON BOOM IS JUST BEGINNING

Though Louisville’s distilling heritage dates back to the 1780s, 2023 marked only a decade since the opening of the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, the city’s first ticketed bourbon attraction. Since then, Louisville has undergone a spirited renaissance, seeing bourbon-themed hotels, festivals, restaurants, and more than a dozen additional distilleries and attractions open within the city limits. Louisville has seen even more action in 2024 with the openings of The Last Refuge, a new restaurant, whiskey bar, and live music venue inside a 150-year-old church led by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, Log Still Distillery’s Monk’s Road Boiler House, a supper club-inspired restaurant and tasting room on the original Whiskey Row and the Oxmoor Bourbon Company, which offers tours and tastings at a historic farm that was once home to 5 generations of the Bullitt family. Stay tuned for a new Pursuit Spirits tasting room, which is planned to open on Whiskey Row by the end of 2024.

100 YEARS OF THE GREAT GATSBY

Turning 100 years old in April 2025, The Great Gatsby is considered one of the greatest works of literature ever written and may not have happened had it not been for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s time in Louisville. Stationed at Camp Taylor during World War I, a young Fitzgerald would find himself at Louisville’s Seelbach Hotel for a drink at the bar. It’s there that Fitzgerald is said to have rubbed elbows with mobsters and bootleggers, one of which ultimately inspired the character for Jay Gatsby. In fact, Louisville is mentioned seven times throughout the novel and is the birthplace of antagonist Daisy Buchannon. The Seelbach Hotel, which turns 120 years old in 2025, is written as the location of Tom & Daisy’s lavish June wedding which saw “more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before.”

CHRISTMAS TIME IN KENTUCKY

Coming for the first time to Kentucky’s largest amusement park, Christmas at Kentucky Kingdom is an $8 million investment that will bring holiday cheer to Louisville starting in late November. Highlights include over one million lights, a tree maze, and a four-story, 175-foot-long snow tubing hill retrofit into the water park’s wave pool. One hundred feet below ground you’ll find the Louisville Mega Cavern’s Lights Under Louisville, featuring the world’s only fully underground, drive through holiday light show. A self-driven experience, the underground adventure features over 6 million points of light, 900 lit characters and a laser light show. The Old Louisville Holiday Home Tour takes place in the country’s third largest historic district and allows visitors to explore Victorian-era mansions ornately decorated for the holidays. The 6-week Fête De Noël in the Paristown district offers outdoor ice skating, trackless train rides, and a Holiday Market along with special events and holiday movie screenings. Other classic Louisville traditions include the Louisville Ballet‘s annual production of the Nutcracker and Gardens Aglimmer at the Waterfront Botanical Gardens. Cap it all off with bourbon balls and a pre-batched Bourbon eggnog which can purchased on historic Whiskey Row at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience.

LOUGRASS

Hailing from the Bluegrass State of Kentucky, Bill Monroe is highly regarded as the father of American Bluegrass, as he and his band, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, helped spread the musical genre across the South back in the 1930s. Nearly a century later, Bluegrass music is seeing a revival in Kentucky’s largest city with live
performances gracing some of the city’s hottest bourbon bars and music venues. Performances often incorporate contemporary music and sound into the classic Bluegrass music genre, creating a microgenre we’ve coined as LouGrass. Starting in April of 2024, visitors and locals alike will be able to experience live Bluegrass music for free, every weekend, through the end of October. A full schedule of performances can be found at GoToLouisville.com/LouGrass.

GET A TASTE OF THE KENTUCKY DERBY

Once hailed by Magic Johnson as “the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras all rolled into one,” the Derby has become a national springtime holiday with its own distinct culture. For starters, locals roll out a unique menu from appetizers to desserts to cocktails. Start with triangle-cut Benedictine sandwiches using the curious light green cucumber spread Benedictine, invented by Louisville caterer Jennie Benedict in the late 1800s. Next, dive into a Kentucky Hot Brown, an open-faced hot turkey, bacon, cheese, and tomato sandwich invented at the century-old Brown Hotel in 1926. Add Henry Bain Sauce, a rich and tangy tomato and vinegar-based topping, to any of your meat-based dishes. The original recipe was created by Henry Bain, the maitre d’ at Louisville’s Pendennis Club, which also happens to be the birthplace of the Old Fashioned cocktail. For dessert try Derby-Pie®, the official pie of the Kentucky Derby, invented at a local Louisville inn in the 1950s. Or, try Bourbon Balls, a delicacy invented by two Kentucky ex-teachers in the 1930s. Lastly, you’ll want to wash it all down with a Mint Julep, the iconic Kentucky Derby cocktail that mixes Bourbon, sugar, water, and mint, in a signature silver julep cup.

BOUTIQUE STAYS

Louisville neighborhoods are seeing an emergence of boutique properties retrofitted in reclaimed spaces. In downtown Louisville, you’ll find the 51-room Grady Hotel, an 1883 building once a pharmacy where prescriptions of “medicinal Bourbon” were filled. Head over to the Highlands neighborhood, and you'll see the construction of Myriad Hotel, a hotel opening in late summer or early fall. This soon-to-be hotel was once a factory that produced disco balls. These elements will be layered within the hotel. The Bellwether offers “invisible service” with online check-in and keypad entry and is housed in an early 1900s police station. The NuLu neighborhood introduced Hotel Genevieve in the spring of 2023, a new-build property making headlines due to its unique style, rooftop bar, speakeasy, and Parisian-inspired café and restaurant.